Category Archives: gearheadism

If I can't have a thoat, this'll do

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I know it’s been all over the web, but I don’t care. I’m posting this picture because it’s just so friggin’ amazing:

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The Mars Reconaissance Orbiter takes a picture of the Mars Phoenix Lander as the Lander parachutes down. I wish I could find the Arthur C. Clarke quote about 2001 coming true (except for the monolith pieces), but not being noticed because the principal players were/are all robotic.

The Phoenix Lander has a Twitter account – the latest tweet: “Looking forward to moving arm today. Will bend the wrist and flex the elbow. It’s been stowed for 10 months so I’ll move it slowly/gently.” (@marsphoenix)

1950 Ford

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An eBay listing (ended) for Steve and the folks at Overland Journal.

1950 Ford 2-Door Coupe

Completely refurbished as a road rally car, inside and out.

***  This car is for rally enthusiasts, collectors, or museums ***
 This car was driven Peking to Paris on the 100th anniversary of the first

Peking to Paris race in 1907. Then driven JFK to Anchorange in 8 days with a

few days off for flying to the USA and clearing Customs.

 The total trip around the world was completed in 49 days.

 

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Via Diego Rodriguez’s excellent Unabashed Gearhead Gnarliness.


					

		
		
	


				
					
	

				
					
	

		

						
Wordly Wise

			
						

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Today’s word is from a discussion of eccentric bottom brackets – grubscrew:


…which bemoaned detents created in BB eccentrics by grubscrews. If hollow-point grubscrews fix that, then I can’t think of any other problem with them.


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I assume “grubscrews” is the UK equivalent of setscrews?




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Technically, a grubscrew has no head at all, and is turned by a small Allen wrench or screwdriver. Thus it can screw down below the surface against an internal sliding object.



					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
Blogs, cars

			
						

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Two new blogs I’m going to add to my Netvibes RSS feed: Diego Rodriguez(metacool)’s Unabashed Gearhead Gnarlyness and Mister Jalopy and Mark F.’s Dinosaurs and Robots. I hope I don’t need to explain Mr. Rodriguez’s new place to you; Dinosaurs and Robots says about itself, “Rather than focus on the newest trend, we will seek authentic, handy, rarefied, disgusting, illuminating, delicious, mysterious, intoxicating, commonplace, historic, intensely personal, entertaining and enlightened objects, both priceless heirlooms and exquisite trash.” Sounds good to me. Uniting both new blogs – a certain, shall we say, augmented, Ford product.



					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
Blasts from the past

			
						

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And I do mean blasts –




    

  • S: (n) good time, blast (a highly pleasurable or exciting experience) “we had a good time at the party”; “celebrating after the game was a blast”
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  •  S: (v) blast, blare (make a strident sound) “She tended to blast when speaking into a microphone” *
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From the Hemmings blog, an ad for Dr. Old’s creation – the 442. I went as fast as I’ve ever gone (in a car) in a friend’s 1966 442 – probably not the smartest thing I’ve ever done, but what are you gonna do? Lest we all wax too nostalgic, I read a comparo in Car and Driver matching classic muscle cars against the VW GTI/Civic Si’s of the world and the newer little thangs ate the old iron up. There’s a lot to like about the old stuff, but when gas hits $4/gallon here in the states this summer, well…








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From Make:,  another vintage noisemaker – homemade Leslies! A Hammond B3 and Leslies – a pair that’s worth their own ‘Got a Match?’ post… Again, as a result of misspent youth – I’ll always associate Leslie speakers with the J. Geils Band (local boys make good – Mr. Faye Dunaway, though from the Bronx, will always mean early 70’s Boston to me).


The youtube of the homemade rig:




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And the J. Geils Band – couldn’t find anything era-appropriate that had the whole band going, so you’ll have to settle for Magic Dick:




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“27 more minutes, before I say bye-bye…”

					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
K is for contra-rotating

			
						

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Newton’s third law – refined as the conservation of angular momentum – is not the helicopter’s friend. There are the usual solutions – a tail rotor that provides thrust to counter the main rotor’s torque and tandem rotors (where two equal sized rotors move in opposite directions and offset each other) – and the out-of-the-ordinary takes on the problem.I was nosing around the web a couple days ago, trying to figure out if a picture of a  helicopter was  real or a model used in a movie (option 2, by the way) and discovered another Soviet/Russian helicopter design bureau: Kamov. The Kamov Design Bureau’s claim to fame is the use of coaxial contra-rotating rotors. I’ve got to think that this a hella complicated way to do things, but it is compact. Lots of good Russian chopper design – a couple stood out.




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The Ka-137 (above) is the quintessential evil drone. It’s a UAV that can do recon/surveillance work and  – according to the linked web site – deliver cargo. No mention of weapon mounts…


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The Ka-56 is superspy material. Depending on who you believe, it was either designed just to be carried in a torpedo tube (why?) or actually fired from the tube inside, one assumes, a special torpedo (yay!). Followed by another torpedo carrying our intrepid agent, one hopes. Looks like the writers of the Venture Brothers missed a perfect obscure reference when they put Assassinanny 911 together.


What makes the title of the post work is the solution of another chopper designer – Kaman Aircraft. They used an intermeshed contra-rotating solution – at least the hubs are side-by-each rather than one sorta-inside the other. The HH-43 Huskie has been fave of mine since my plastic model aircraft days.






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If you embiggen the picture above, notice the warning on the rotor mast. Because of the way the rotor assemblies are canted, approaching from the side would result in a radical hair cut.

					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
Follow-up on some posts

			
						

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I channel-surfed my way to a teevee program on the history of Soviet helicopters the other evening. There was footage of the Mi-12; it’s tough to envision just how big it is until you see it swallowing trucks whole. I did a YouTube search and came up with the following clip – it’s in French and interestingly enough what parts of the narration I understand match perfectly with the English version I saw. Mi-12 fun fact – there’s a shaft connecting both powertrains together. Both engines on one side could fail, but both rotors will continue to turn.




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Minor spoiler alert! I’ve posted on Alan Moore and Gerry Anderson recently and wasn’t surprised at all to find that Moore knows his Anderson. In The Black Dossier Mina and Allan arrive at a spaceport where they steal a rocket – a Pancake Extra-Large 4. They had been told that the Extra-Large models are named after how the previous models met their end (thus Shrapnel XL2). One guess as to how the Pancake meets it’s end (with a not-too-bright Perspex robot pilot at the controls).



					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
Scoot

			
						

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Via Telstar Logistics, a glorious bit of bricolage:






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Click through and view the whole thing. Nixie tube speedo! Vacuum cleaner brake light! My two wheel lust continues to be focused on a Ducati Monster, but this is sublime.


The Maker’s first name – Nemo – is getting filed under ‘Suggestions for Grandbaby Names’ – to be used far in the future. A simultaneous link to Verne and McCay would not be a bad thing.

					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
Scoop

			
						

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A Certain Design Student scoops Jalopnik! Sighted on the Pratt campus and posted to Flickr on the 29th, two Nissan Cubes.






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Days (OK, day)  later – the Jalopnik post. I prefer the greenish paint job – it fits – reminds me of earlier Japanese microcars.


Continuing with the automotive theme – the internets are trying to tell me something. Twice, in as many days, I’ve been presented with posts on a vehicle that three days ago I didn’t know existed – a FC (forward control) Land Rover. This, after googling for info on the FC-170 Jeep in the middle of the week. I think the net is becoming self aware – and it likes me!






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Want!

					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
Random photoblogging

			
						

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Some pictures taken during the last week or so…


My office spider, a male Lasiodora parahybana. He has a small fan club led by a middle-school girl (her curiosity and fearlessness rock).






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A couple dart frog pictures taken when I dropped by a fellow frogger’s place to pick up a D. fantasticus. An E. bassleri Black in an ?Aechmea?:






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And a Phyllobates terriblis – the really toxic one – looking tough.






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Shifting gears a bit – a couple awful pictures of a killer vehicle. Spotted in Portsmouth on a misty evening, a Swedish Unimog. It looks like it’s set up for pumper duty – man, I love these trucks!






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Ultra!

			
						

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Heading north yesterday, I noticed that a neighbor had pulled his Ultravan out of the barn. I popped by this morning to ask permission to take some pictures and got a surprise. I didn’t know these folks – had only spotted the Ultravan nose peeping out of the barn on previous trips past – turns out they are the folks that drive the Isetta, the Messerschmitt, and other little vehicles in the Madbury Day parade. Also, very nice people. Not only did I get permission to photograph the Ultravan, I got a lot of info about the vehicle and I got a quick tour of the basement (Daihatsu three-wheeler, France Jet, motorcycles, outboards) and the garage, where the current active project sits: a Goggomobil Dart. Pictures:






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The whole photoset is here.